


A Clan Of One

by OctopusFridge



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:17:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22100119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OctopusFridge/pseuds/OctopusFridge
Summary: How the Armorer came to be the only Mandalorian left in the covert.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

The only noise in the tunnels of the sewers was of the clanking of beskar as she carted the pieces away to the forge. The armor of the fallen members of the tribe would be melted down, reforged into ingots, and then into armor again, at some point, eventually. A sorrowful task, but not one without purpose. There would be no waste. It was the Way.

Most of the tribe had gone to answer Dyn's call for aid. The Armorer had not. Her place was with the forge, the beating heart of the tribe, their connection to their ancestors through the creation of armor. Those with foundlings under their care had not. Their place was with the foundling, their responsibility first to the child and their protection and education. To care for the future was of utmost importance. For some, it was difficult to stay behind, they longed for a fight with real stakes, not mere sparring as they all did for practice. To prove their worth and honor. They got that chance. Some of the tribe who had gone to fight returned, yes, carrying the wounded, dead, and dying, but Stormtroopers had tracked them back to the covert. There was more fighting. More dying. 

They had defeated the Stormtroopers, but at a cost, and they now knew the location of the covert. It was necessary to leave. The Armorer had organized the other's departure. Those with foundlings had left first. The rest left in pairs as the wounded either healed or died. Their armor she had laid in a pile with that of those who had died earlier, to be reformed later. The priority was to arrange for departure without detection, to create disguises for the armor to avoid attention, for the funeral rites of the dead, their bodies given proper respect as they burned in the forge.

The Armorer had instructed the tribe to scatter to the wind, minimize chances of discovery. None knew where anyone else was going, but all left with message fobs from the Armorer, to be activated in a few years, eventually light up with coordinates and a date for reunification when she called the tribe back together.

Once the Armorer had taken care of the rest of the tribe, she began the task of melting and reforging the fallen's armor into ingots. Easier to forge armor with later, smaller and inconspicuous for transport. She was the last of the clan, the only one remaining on Nevarro. Her departure would be more complex than the rest. She would need to transport the forge along with her, which would require disassembling it. She could not take passenger transport in a rough disguise of robes and a breather mask over her armor like the others, no, she would need to acquire a ship. Could not book passage on a freighter and risk an outsider viewing the forge. The forge was a secret, its intricacies known only to her. In time, she would have taken a foundling as an apprentice and trained her in its ways, but she did not have that. She was, for all practical intents and purposes, a clan of one.


	2. Chapter 2

As it turned out, the Armorer was not, in fact, the only Mandalorian left on Nevarro. Dyn Djarren had returned. His arrival was unexpected, but not unanticipated, as the Armorer had set up a simple surveillance system of the tunnels, sensors taken from the helmets of those who had fallen that would send her a message over her commlink when motion passed by. At first it was just the message, but she'd later reprogrammed the sensors to also send a holo of what triggered them after too much time spent chasing false alarms that were likely just rats. The system was new to her, new to the sewers that the tribe once occupied. When they were many, someone could always stand guard. Now, she could not.

Following Dyn's path as she waited for his arrival, the Armorer kept to her task. The images she received showed others with him, a man, a woman, and surprisingly for Dyn, a droid. They had undoubtedly been in a fight. Likely would have to continue fighting their way out of the city to safety. Just as she had prepared for the rest of the tribe's departure, the Armorer prepared for Dyn's. He did not have a jetpack, and would need one. She found one of the right size from those that the tribe had abandoned. Those leaving on passenger ships had not been able to take their jetpacks with them, the passenger liners all had security measures in place, which included limiting weapons. The Armorer had had to send her tribe away virtually unarmed, by their usual standards. It was unfortunate, but they would find new weapons wherever they arrived and they would survive. It was the Way.

When Dyn and his companions arrived, their number was actually four, not five as she had thought earlier. Dyn had brought with him the child that was once his bounty, the child whose escape from Nevarro cost the lives of many in the tribe. It was small, green, big-eared, and curious. The Armorer did not have time to examine the child further. Dyn was surely being followed by Imperial forces, and there was little time to waste. She listened as he told her the things that the child had done - lifted a raging mudhorn into the air, healed with a touch, and she contemplated it as she worked the forge. There was no time to forge anything as complex as whistling birds, but what the Armorer did have time to create was nearly as important as the miniscule darts. A sigil. A mudhorn. 

Seeing the child, the former bounty that Dyn had sacrificed so much for, it was clear that the two shared a close bond. The child was special, dangerously so. Dyn's actions had shown the extent that he was willing to go to to protect it, to go as far as exposing the tribe. The clan of two would always be welcome in the Armorer's tribe, but it was obvious they were forming their own path, their destination no longer the same as her tribe's. 

The child could not be trained as a Mandalorian. It was still an infant. It could walk, communicate through expressions and sounds, but it could not talk. Its small size was not a matter of concern in regards to its potential to be trained, the barrier was its age and that it could not agree to be trained as a Mandalorian, it would not understand what becoming a Mandalorian meant. It was too young. Dyn would need to care for it entirely, it was totally dependant on him. She ensured that the Mandalorian understood this fully, that he was reminded of this part of the Way as much as he already knew the rest. 

As the Armorer forged, she remembered the past, the history of her ancestors and the war they fought and lost against a race called the Jedi, who had strange powers, powers like the child had. They were enemies, yes, but the child was too young to know that it was an enemy and thus it was not. Though the Jedi were enemies, they were the foundling's people, and the only way to understand the powers innate in it. Learning to control and use those powers would be part of the child's education, potentially part of how it fought in battle. Dyn held a responsibility to the foundling to seek out its people and see that it understood that part of itself. It was the Way.

She had marked Dyn with his sigil, armed him with knowledge and a jetpack. Resupplied him and his companions as best she could. Then, Stormtroopers approached and that meant that the clan of two and the three that accompanied them needed to continue on. They did so.

The Armorer knelt in front of the forge, tools clasped in crossed hands. They were her connection to the ways of her ancestors, passed down from the Armorers that had come before her. As her commlink beeped steadily notifying her of the Stormtroopers' approach, the Armorer tensed, energy coiled as she waited for the right moment to strike. In an instant, the same tools she used to forge implements of protection became instruments of destruction as she took down the Stormtroopers. Fight over, she looked for any survivors, and then, after attaching her tools to her belt, unceremoniously tossed the bodies of the dead Stormtroopers into the forge. There would be no trace of them, though there would be others. The Armorer would need to leave Nevarro sooner than she thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued.

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued. Green bean and his babysitters will be in the next chapter.


End file.
